david dieHl - New York Giants

The Coughlin Corner
Week 8
By Michael Eisen
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The Coughlin Corner, Giants.com’s exclusive weekly interview with head
coach Tom Coughlin:
Q: You’ve been asked about the rivalries in the NFC East and how competitive they are. Do you talk to
the players about what it means to play in the NFC East?
Coughlin: “I talk to them about the NFC East being the toughest division in all of pro football. I talk to
them about the extreme tradition between all of the franchises because, in fact, they have been playing
each other for so very, very long. When a game comes along like the Redskins game or the Eagles game,
that’s pretty easy. Dallas is maybe relatively new in terms of historical perspective, but the other teams
certainly are among the league’s founding fathers. So yes, we talk about that.”
Q: When you’re on the sideline, is there a different feel to a division game? Are they more intense?
Are they more physically and emotionally taxing than other games? Are they different?
Coughlin: “They’re different because you put so much stock in them, so much meaning in these games,
because they really are like two games. People start in the offseason with your research against your
divisional opponents. You naturally think that you know a lot more about your divisional opponents than
you do about some of the other teams that you play only on a revolving nature, so that leads to it. But
the significance of being in the division since the divisions were revised (in 2002) and since you have
only four teams in the division, you play each other twice, you see what the significance is. It is the
arrow pointed toward the playoffs.”
Q: You didn’t play the Cowboys that long ago. When you play a rematch, you want to be able to do
what you did well, but you also have to change things up because you can’t have the exact same plan.
Are you trying to do two different things there when you have a rematch?
Coughlin: “You are, but you’re still looking at every opponent. What was done by the opponent? How
are they attacking? How are they defending? What can be done in terms of special teams? How are the
special teams affecting the game? What is the field position situation? You have all those things going
for you with regard to studying, but you have to remember what you do well and what the opponent
hasn’t done well and that becomes a factor of what you’re trying to create in order to get to something
you feel like you can. Pro football, more than any other game in my opinion, is the recognition of the
players themselves and their strengths and their weaknesses and how you go about attacking or
defending based on their strengths.”
Q: The two-minute drill got a lot of attention after the exploits of Eli Manning and Victor Cruz against
Washington. You practice the two-minute drill just once a week. Do you try to make it as competitive
as possible for Eli?
Coughlin: “It is. It’s ones against ones.”
Q: Is that the only time you have the first offense going against the first defense?
Coughlin: “No. We do our rally stuff with ones against ones, but you have to remember, it starts in
training camp. It’s always been a huge indicator for me. It is one of the most competitive drills that you
have in camp, when they’re going against each other all the time. You’re going against each other, ones
against ones, twos against twos all the time, but that drill is extremely competitive and sometimes it